Historical Timeline

Mid 1800s

Small icebergs were towed from southern Chile up to Valparaiso. A Chilean researcher said, "The icebergs were towed by ships of the conventional type. Sometimes the icebergs were supplied with sails to utilize the prevailing winds. The ice was used for refrigerating purposes and was generally substituted for artificial ice."

Early 1940s

The British try to build a massive ship out of wood pulp and ice. They call it Project Habakkuk ; the plan was stopped.

1949

John Isaacs suggested "capturing an eight-billion-ton iceberg, 20 miles long, 3000 feet wide, and 1000 feet deep in the Antarctic and towing it up to San Clemente Island off San Diego in 200 days." The way Isaacs saw it, the energy required to guide the berg up two continents was a mere fraction of the energy required to desalinate it, which was itself a popular idea for the third quarter of the 20th century.

1960s

Oil companies developed a successful iceberg towing technology to keep the ice away from their oil rigs in the Labrador Sea between Canada and Greenland. "It was found that a floating bridle around the berg, attached to several tugs, was feasible and safe."

1973

The RAND Corporation was most comprehensive scheme iceberg project to date, J.L. Hult and N.C. Ostrander created an actual paper model of how an "iceberg train" could work. This is classic RAND work with lots of math and appendices.

1977

Iceberg Transport International company was established by Prince Mohammed al Faisal. and it was considering a plan to tow a 100 million-ton iceberg off Antarctica using powerful tugboats to the red sea, where it would supply enormous quantities of drinking water. The journey was estimated to take about eight months and the project would cost around $100 million, according to estimates.

2009

A French engineer Georges Mougin cooperated with a technology firm called Dassault Systèmes which creates 3D worlds and algorithmic simulations. Mougin could now test his various theories on iceberg-towing virtually, to see whether his idea would be feasible.

2011

Filling the Empty Quarter book

Filling the Emptry Quarter book was published by engineer Abdulla Alshehhi; the book outlined many ways to harvest & save water one of which was considering the icebergs as a new water resource for the world.

2017

The Project Concept was presented during ”Filling the Empty Quarter lecture” at The Ministry of Infrastructure Development in the UAE.

2017

The project was presented to Abu Dhabi Economic Department during “Filling The Empty Quarter “ lecture

2017

A press release was published National Advisor Bureau Limited ; to announce that it has completed the pre-feasability study for the UAE-Iceberg Project ; which made a big international news at the time.